Makeup Party

Last weekend, I attended my first Bare Minerals makeup consultation and party at one of their shops at a local mall. The store was not open to customers yet, so we had plenty of individualized attention.

Sally is the older sister to two of my closest friends, Hannah and Leah. She won a free makeup party in a contest and invited me and all of her friends to come. Here's a little known fact: Sally was our dorm Student Advisor when I was a freshman in college. Back then it was mostly Sally threatening me and Hannah (and our friends) with "write ups" or something for being too loud and Hannah threatening to tell their mom if she did. Hilarious!


I stopped wearing makeup on a regular basis when I started college; my morning beauty routine consists of washing my face and putting on moisterizer. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a good 'ol face polishing with a makeup artist, though. In fact, I love people putting my makeup on, as all my friends can attest to on various Saturday nights before we go out. I will plead ignorance and then ask them to put on my eyeshadow etc., and they humor me.

Although I haven't incorporated makeup into my daily routine, I have a fascination with anything skincare related. You should see the amount of skin creams, micro-exfoliators, face masks and pore minimizing toners hanging out in my medicine cabinet. It's ridiculous.

I did end up purchasing this lip gloss, it's called "sugar plum" and at $15 it was probably the most affordable thing in the store. Beauty doesn't come cheap, right? Thanks Sally for a fun Sunday morning!!

And What Would This Be??

...my first loaf of homemade bread!! Ya! The crust was fabulously crunchy and it tasted great. Of course a 3 year old could do it as long as you have a dutch oven, which I bought specifically so I could do this recipe.

Balloon Glow!!

Last Friday, Caroline and I went to Forest Park to see the Balloon Glow in Forest Park. Every year, the night before the Forest Park Balloon Race, the participants fill their balloons and allow the public to get up close to these amazing balloons.

The crowds were pretty thick, which made walking around the park a little difficult. It was amazing though, to see the fires shoot up in to the balloons. It lit up the entire area.



It was increadible how hot it was around the balloon baskets. The gas fires would shoot up a good 15 feet in to the balloon and it was just mesmerizing. We met up with our friend Elena and her boyfriend, David. The balloon glow was followed by fireworks and we had a great time eating corn dogs and watching the show!

Clayton Art Fair

My sister and I decided to go to the Clayton Art Fair this past Saturday.

Aside from the fact that most people can't actually afford to purchase most of the artwork, it was neat to see. The little Andean dancers in the photo above are actually about 2 inches tall. The detail was amazing!

It's not every day you get to see life size metal dancers in the air!

Caroline actually did splurge and she bought an absolutely gorgeous silver necklace. It's her early birthday present to herself, and we should all be able to give ourselves birthday presents every once in a while!

Notes from Labor Day

I don't have much to blog on. I was planning on posting about my fabulous 32nd birthday party which was going to include all of my dear friends and heapings of lovely baked goods. And then I got a mild head cold. And then that head cold headed south and became severe bronchitis/pneumonia that has lasted so far 6 days and counting. I cancelled the party and spent the entire weekend holed up in my apartment watching TNT movies, reading and resting and that's it. Today has been my first day to really venture out since my lungs didn't sound and feel like I had a bunch of rocks in it. I skipped the Greek festival in Forest Park and met up with my sister and my friend Elena for lunch at The Majestic in the Central West End. It was wonderful. I felt like a prisoner glimpsing freedom.

After lunch, not wanting to give up on getting some fresh air, I decided to walk to the park and read...and I also brought my camera. I've been learning about shutter speed and thought I would try and take some photos at various speeds. The photo above was taken at 1/30th of a second - it's not the slowest setting, but it's pretty darn slow. As you can see the fountain water is blurry and smooth looking.

The above photo was taken at 1/500th of a second and you can start to see the individual water drops as they fall in to the pond.

This last photo was taken at 1/2000 of a second and my goodness can you see the detail or what?! You'll also notice, though, that the photo becomes progressively darker as the shutter speed gets higher. I'm sure you can control for this on an SLR camera, but I haven't figured out a way to change this on mine. Regardless, it was a neat experiment. And it was nice to get out of the house!